The door thumped again, louder this time. “Are you decent?”
Maddie glanced at herself one last time and pulled a face. “Hard to say.”
The door flung open, resulting in way too much daylight.
Ugh. “You better be on fire.” Maddie glared at Simon. No singed hair.
“Even more exciting.” He ran his fingers through the trimmed two-day growth on his jaw.
“Wait, more exciting than a fire?” She reached for her tracksuit pants, rammed one leg in, and pulled them over her shorts. Sounded like a crisis worthy of properly getting dressed.
“Yep!” Simon tossed Maddie her phone. “It’s big. Which you’d know if you hadn’t slept the morning away. It’s eleven, and it sounds like your boss can’t wait.”
Maddie snatched up her phone. “Give me a break,” she grumbled. “I work night shift. I do need to sleep sometime.” She read the text message, her stomach twisting with anxiety. “They’re calling everyone in for a noon meeting. I guess the rumours were true. That company that bought us out last year? The owner’s finally noticed us and is probably coming in to gut us today.”
Simon nodded, a sage expression on his face.
She narrowed her eyes. “You sneak. You read his message?”
Simon lifted his hands in innocence. “Only cos your boss’s name flashed up. I wanted to see if it was important enough to rouse you from The Showering Dead.” He scratched his slightly rounded stomach. “So, she’s really on her way? The Elena Bartell? She who monsters itty-bitty papers to feed to her empire? And looks shit hot while doing it?”
“Looks like.” Maddie gave the message a final, morose glare. “Trust you to care more about her looks than her tactics.”
“Au contraire, Mads, I can care about both. That woman’s a bloody media genius. They did a case study on her at business school. Let me tell you how she racked up her first hundred mill—”
“Can’t wait for that story. Meanwhile, I’m not sure if I’ll even have a job by tonight. And with you moving back to Sydney soon, this is a total disaster. How am I going to afford rent on this shoe box on my own with no job?”
“Could be worse. You could actually like that shitty job you’re about to lose. I’ve seen you steel yourself to go into work. But now…” He gave her a grin.
Maddie huffed out a breath. “First, you could try to sound sorry for me. Second, I’m not going back to waitressing.”
“Hours would be better. And you might actually talk to people again. That has to be a bonus.”
“Okay, working for Hudson Metro News might not be perfect, but it’s a reporting job—finally. It’s what I’m good at. When I waitress, people get hurt.” Maddie’s mind drifted back to several regrettable incidents. At least the chef’s hair had grown back. Well, except his eyebrows.
“Come on, Mads, didn’t you come to New York to live the dream? Not tolerate the dream?”
A muscle in her jaw twitched. She hated it when people talked about the Dream. New York had never been her dream, although admitting that was social suicide. The truth was that every day she woke with a sinking feeling. The brightness, the buzz, and the constant rush left her feeling like a dead pixel on a Times Square billboard. Her friends back home wanted to live vicariously through her, so what could she say? It’s great. So great. Yeah. Just. Wow. Each day she cringed a little more at not living up to everyone else’s dream. Why didn’t she fit into a city that everyone fit into?
Simon was still talking. “You’ve been stuck doing the crapola shift, spending all your days sleeping and barely seeing the sights. So my point is, hoo-fucking-ray! You’ll be fired from a job you hate. We’ll celebrate tonight with the Fun Factory. Okay?” He paused and raked his gaze over her clothes. “And don’t change a thing. That outfit totally says ‘fire my ass’.”
Maddie glanced down at herself. He had a point. She must be more tired than she thought. That drug bust she’d been working on overnight had taken it out of her. “I’m not even working today.” She yawned. “I don’t have to get glammed up if it’s my day off. It’s the Aussie way.”
“Famous last words. Seriously, you want my advice?”
“Hell no. You can’t dress to save yourself, and my day’s disastrous enough as it is. So rack off and let me get my ass into gear.”
His laughter drifted through the door, as she toed it shut behind him. But Simon raised a good point: What did one wear to their apocalypse?
* * *
Maddie hauled herself into work with dark glasses affixed to stave off the beginnings of a tiredness headache and an all-black ensemble more befitting a gothic rock group than professional attire.
On the L train commute, she studied the Elena Bartell bio page she’d downloaded before she’d hit the subway. The chief operating officer and publisher for dozens of newspaper and magazine mastheads had sculpted, short, jet-black hair, pale features, and form-fitting designer clothes. There was a sleekness to her, like a lean, sci-fi action hero, and a dangerous look to her cool eyes.
She was listed as forty, although she could pass as years younger. The woman was notoriously media shy—ironic, given her profession and how much the camera loved her. Bartell had risen as a fashion writer on CQ magazine and, at one point, was being tipped as its future editor. Instead, Bartell had disappeared.
A year later, she’d turned up as the new owner of a small group of failing regional papers. Within a year, she’d turned them into profit; within two, she’d made her first million. She’d scored her first $500 million by age thirty-five.
There was only one publication the media mogul had created from nothing herself—Style International, a fashion magazine which had five editions worldwide—Style NY, Sydney, Tokyo, London and Paris. That personal investment told Maddie that fashion mattered to Bartell, and her job at CQ hadn’t just been a stepping stone. She’d been passionate about it—at least at one point.
Maddie looked down and considered her outfit. She winced. Her bold choice born of exhaustion and a faintly rebellious streak was not looking so smart right now.
She scrolled down her phone and found a brief mention of a husband in 1999, a reporter turned author who was gone by 2001. There was a second husband now. Richard Barclay. Lawyer. She glanced at his photo and suppressed a shudder. He might be toothpaste-commercial handsome, but he had a smug-bastard face.
So, two sharks had fallen for their own kind? That figured. From everything she’d read, Bartell seemed to love nothing better than to strip a business to its rafters, if she could squeeze some money out of it. They’d even given her a nickname to go with her corporate cleansing. Tiger Shark. Maddie put away her phone and stared out the window at the underground blackness. Was the Hudson Metro News about to be another victim of the media mogul’s rapier-sharp teeth?
As Union St station neared, she considered the prospect of being fired. Simon was right, although she’d never admit it. Eight months of working there, and she hated her job. Except for one thing—she was finally doing what she had told all her friends and family she would do. Be a reporter in New York.
The train pulled up. Maddie stepped onto the subway platform, nose wrinkling at the familiar stench of urine and rotting garbage. Time to face the apocalypse.
* * *
For a harbinger of doom, Elena Bartell was beautifully turned out in steampunk chic. A wide silver buckle adorned ebony ankle boots, standing out beneath black, tailored pants. They were a dark contrast against her crisp, white linen shirt, set behind a silky, black-and-silver embroidered vest with a fob-watch-style chain running from a button into its pocket. Maddie was transfixed. How unexpected.
Bartell’s compact body radiated power and control and drew every eye to her. Even standing with the paper’s editor, general manager, and news chief, three men who each had six inches on her, she was easily the most authoritative person in the room.
Scanning the gathering, Bartell’s eyes were clear-blue and sharp. She smiled faintly through the introduction droning on in the background.
